Motivation for Knowledge Management in Software Engineering

Software engineering is a complex business that involves many people working in different phases and activities. Constant technology changes make the work dynamic: New problems are solved and new knowledge is created every day. The knowledge in software engineering is diverse and its proportions immense and growing. Organizations have problems keeping track of what this knowledge is, where it is, and who has it. A structured way of managing the knowledge and treating the knowledge and its owners as valuable assets could help organizations leverage the knowledge they possess. This section discusses software organizations’ needs related to knowledge management. We also discuss some of the challenges that software organizations might face when they try to implement knowledge management, as well as some opportunities that might make implementation easier.